Okay, so I have a longtime Pbp DnD game running on MW. It started as 3.5 and is now 4E. I have finally reached my limit with the slowness of the combat. I reduced all hps to 80%, but it didn't speed it up appreciably. I am seeking advice on how to speed up the combats drastically. Here are my requirements:

1. I still want it to retain the 4E, DnD flavor.
2. I still want to challenge the players and retain the same relative balance.

A very radical option is to give your PCs the tools (and behind the screen knowledge) to resolve and narrate the effects of an attack each round on their own. Then you move, attack, whatever you'd normally do etc.

You might consider handling the roleplay via post, but when combat starts, use IRC or a program like OpenRPG to resolve the combat within half an hour instead of half a month. Then you simply post

You'll want to pretty the log up to look like a normal post, full of descriptive imagery, rather than a jumble of numbers.

You'll be surprised at how smoothly it can flow, compared to constantly retconning character actions due to iterative attacks/ongoing damage/et cetera.

the log of the combat in your thread, and continue on with the roleplay. You can actually expect to finish a module within a couple of months and move on to the next one, rather than still being stuck in the third room fighting those accursed dire rats.

There are several drawbacks to this approach, though:

1. Requires all players to be online at an agreed-upon time
2. Requires all players to have the same program to play with
3. You'll have to do a bit of formatting and editing before posting combat logs.
4. Might conflict with the "don't advertise for games not on MW" rule.

Blackrazor, great suggestions with the minion thing. I have been contemplating something similar.

Also, I just started using DND4eCM. I love it. I just wish some code mionkey would program it with the ability to track healing surges and action points (and maybe daily item uses). That doesn't sound hard to me. Anyone want to do it?

Not-so-great option: If you're stuck in doing the combat in PbP, your best bet is to reduce two things:
The number of communications between player and GM required to take actions:
- if, for example, you give the players working knowledge of enemy defenses and hp, now they don't need to wait to know if the attack didn't hit and they need to use a re-roll ability, and the next player in line knows whether or not the monster is dead already without GM input. You may also allow players to update the battle grid.
- You can encourage players to pre-define the conditions under which interrupts and attack of opportunities will happen, example: if the GM doesn't need to wait for the fighter to tell him whether he wants to do an AO or not against rat #37, combat moves faster.

The amount of waiting required by players.
One of the reasons combat slows to a crawl because of the initiative system. If you fudge with it, things will move faster.
- fidget with the enemy initiative rolls so they're mostly clumped in groups on the order.
- allow players that are right next to each other in initiative order to post regardless of who's actually first (in other words, if A rolled 5 init, and B rolled a 4, allow B to post before A if he happens to log earlier), this works remarkably well if you fidgeted with enemy initiative so that monsters are clumped together.

Interesting... but what about side effects? For example (and this may not be exactly correct, but bear with me), power X does normal damage against the target, and then 3 damage to everyone adjacent to that target. Does that additional damage count as a "hit"? If not, then it seems like you would ignore it... which loses the flavor of the power.

I like the idea, and would be willing to try it in my game's next combat if we can make it workable...